A case study on the world's leading Online Travel Agency (OTA), Booking.com, a digital brand which succeeds in maintaining leadership through adapting its strategy to the market and competition, using personalisation, mobile focus, brand building, segmentation, service and UX, loyalty plans and collaborations with its partners

1. Booking.com: Best in Class Case Study
Ruth Lewin Chen | November 2016

2. Introduction
• The purpose of this presentation is to review Booking.com, the world’s leading brand
for booking accommodations.
• Booking.com is an OTA (Online Travel Agency).
• We chose to focus on Booking.com as a case study due to its leading position in the
global OTA market.
• Each day, over 1,100,000 room nights are reserved on Booking.com, twice as many
as its next biggest competitor, Expedia.
• As presented here, Booking.com is focusing on mobile and hyper-personalization,
therefore it is interesting to understand the strategies it is using in order to increase
the number of reservations made on the Booking.com website.

3. Overview
• Booking.com B.V., part of the Priceline Group, owns and operates Booking.com, the
world leader in booking accommodations online..
• In the second quarter of 2015, Booking.com accounted for around 85 percent of
Priceline Group's $2.28 billion in revenues.
• Gillian Tans is the company’s CEO since April 2016.
• Established in 1996, Booking.com is available in more than 40 languages, and offers
1,035,000 active properties in 227 countries and territories.
• Booking.com B.V. is based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and is supported
internationally by 184 offices in over 70 countries around the world.
• The Booking.com reservation service is free.

4. Analyzing the Success of Booking.com
• Website UX – emphasis on smooth experience, with a focus on personalization. Offering
complementary services conveniently, providing a one-stop-shop.
• The significance of brand awareness – most of the Booking.com’s traffic is led by direct traffic, a
result of high brand awareness. The company is investing in brand awareness via digital and traditional
marketing, localizing its messages and media channels on its key markets, and creating collaborations.
In addition, the company invests heavily in content marketing through a variety of digital assets and
social media.
• Mobile emphasis – the company is responding to the shift towards mobile with apps and tools, aimed
at leisure and business travelers, as well as partners.
• Loyalty programs – the company is responding to the competition with a loyalty program, including a
collaboration with payment cards companies.
• Segmentation – creating services that are specific to segments and answering unmet needs, such as
business travelers.
• Offering added value for partners / customers – the company leverages its vast amount of data, to
offer unique services for partners, including, data analysis and management tools. The company’s
consumer-focus leads to collaboration with competitors – such as TripAdvisor and travel agencies.

5. Background: Website & Statistics

6. Website | Homepage
Booking.com homepage

7. Website | Homepage
Filters help the customers save time when choosing their
stay
A meter on top tells you if the destination is a top
choice with fellow travelers on your selected dates

8. Website | Booking
The booking process: after customers
choose a property, they are offered
available room types

9. Website | Booking
They are then directed to “enter your
details page” including accommodation
preferences and special requests

10. Website | Booking
In order to complete the booking, customers are asked
to finalize the reservation.
They are then sent an email with the booking details.

11. Website | Personalization
• The website offers a personal zone
through which users can choose
their preferences which are then
saved for future reservations.

12. Website | Personalization
• Under the “Trips for a Lifetime”
section, the website offers a
personalized trip according to
interests and preferred locations.

13. Statistics
• According to SimilarWeb, in the 6
months between May-October 2016,
Booking.com’s website experienced
between 271-427 million visitors per
month, through both desktop and
mobile, with July and August being the
peak months.
• Average visit duration for this period was
8:18 minutes.
• The US is leading the website’s traffic on
desktop, followed by the UK, Russia and
Germany, not far behind.

14. Statistics
• According to SimilarWeb, direct traffic
is the leading source of visitors to the site,
suggesting that brand awareness in the
mind of travelers is very high.
• 19.40% of Booking.com’s website traffic
on October 2016 was from referrals,
significantly led by Trivago, while only
1.44% of traffic was from social media,
mostly from Facebook.

15. Competitive Strategy

16. Mobile | Booking.com App
Mobile plays a significant part in Booking.com’s
strategy, with the travelers’ ongoing shift to Mobile.
The app, for both iOS and Android, allows users to use
their booking information and search the site through their
mobile.

17. Mobile | Booking Experiences Tool
• On July 2016, Booking.com launched the
Booking Experiences tool, claimed to “allow
travelers to discover the best a destination has
to offer, all through a mobile device”.
• Booking Experiences is managed entirely within the
Booking.com app.
• According to the company, the app will ultimately
harness Artificial Intelligence technology to predict
individual traveler intent and create a personalized
in-destination experience on demand.
• Once travelers have booked a stay in one of the
first cities to offer Booking Experiences, via a single
QR code in the Booking.com app a traveler can get
instant booking access to all of the participating
venues and attractions in that destination,
eliminating the need to book in advance or wait in
lines to buy tickets.

18. Mobile | Booking Messages Interface
• On May 2016, Booking.com launched Booking
Messages interface, a chat-inspired
communication platform that enables
customers and accommodation providers to
connect with each other from the moment a
booking is made.
• The Booking Messages interface features
automatically pre-translated templates for certain
predefined requests, including arranging check-in
and check-out times, as well as questions about
parking and bed preferences—all in real-time and
with a familiar, chat-like interface.
• According to Booking.com, “75% of our customers
prefer self-service options to take care of simple
requests”, the interface allows them to customize
and manage their trips conveniently.

19. Mobile | Booking Now App
• In January 2015, Booking.com
launched the Booking Now app,
claimed to be “the first truly global
app for spontaneous bookers”.
• The app has been positioned as a
way to serve guests who are looking
for hotel stays within 48 hours or
less.
• However, the company axed the
app after 20 months in service.
• Booking.com says despite last-
minute demand still being on the rise,
such requirements are “best met
through our regular Booking.com
app”.

20. Strategy | Complimentary Services
• Booking.com website offers links to complimentary services, including car rentals, flights
booking, restaurant reservations, villas and vacation homes rental.
• The services are either provided by Booking.com or by other companies which are part of the
Priceline Group, such as Kayak (flights booking) and OpenTable (restaurants reservations).

21. Strategy | Complimentary Services
• Through
Villas.com,
booking.com
offers vacation
homes,
apartments, villas
and more.
• Booking.com
reported a
growing interest
in non-traditional
rentals.

22. Strategy | Complimentary Services
Rentalcars.com

23. Strategy | Complimentary Services
OpenTable for
restaurants
reservations, also a
part of the Priceline
Group

24. Strategy | Professional Services
Booking.com offers travel
agents to use its
platform, claimed to
provide a all-in-one
product

25. Strategy | Professional Services
• Booking.com launched
Booking.com for Business
platform in 2015 to service
unmanaged business travelers
(travelers whose companies don’t
have a formal travel policy). The
company said that 1 in 5 bookings
on the website is for business travel.
• The Booking.com for Business
allows travel managers and
assistants to book on behalf of
others. Travelers are also given
exclusive access to special deals
and complimentary extras at select
properties.

26. Strategy | Professional Services

27. Strategy | Professional Services
• Booking.com offers Pulse
application for property
partners.
• The app allows property managers
to stay up-to-date on arrivals,
departures, new bookings,
cancellations, modifications, and
reviews.
• In addition, managers can interact
with their guests, through a live
chat platform, and more.
• The app is available for both iOS
and Android.

28. Strategy | Professional Services
• Property owners can add
the Booking Button to
enhance their property
website.
• The button links their
website to the Booking.com
reservation engine and
displays their availability for
them.

29. Strategy | Professional Services
• In June 2016, Booking.com launched two free, on-demand, data-driven
products to its accommodation partners worldwide.
• The tools, Booking.com Analytics and the Opportunity Centre provide
actionable data and advice delivered in real time, powered by a customizable
dashboard.
• According to Booking.com, “our partners are hungry for more data and actionable
insights to help them increase the revenue they make via our platform. These new
tools provide our busy partners with access to relevant data and advice when it’s
convenient for them”. It’s all about hyper-customised content delivered in real-time
so our partners can take their businesses to the next level.”
• The Booking.com Analytics dashboard currently features four main reports,
including two sales performance reports.
• The Opportunity Centre allows partners to select the most relevant options for
their property, and instantly implement them to enhance their listing and grow their
business through Booking.com.

30. Strategy | Professional Services

31. Strategy | Professional Services

32. Competition | Expedia
• Booking.com experiences competition from other online-operated accommodation booking
companies, such as Expedia Inc., TripAdvisor and others.
• Expedia Inc., for example, is a major competitor which in compare to Booking.com - offers a more well-
rounded assortment of products, including a much bigger airline-tickets business, cruises and tours and
activities.
• As of 2015, in the US, Expedia has an estimated 75% market share, after acquiring both Travelocity
and Orbitz. Priceline's businesses -- Booking and the original Priceline, which sells discounted travel
packages -- have around 20 percent.

33. Competition | Direct Booking
• Another type of competition
experienced by Booking.com
comes from direct bookings.
• According to Booking.com’s
CEO, Gillian Tans, there will
always be direct bookings, in
cases in which customers often
stay at a specific property.
However, “most of the customers
on Booking.com are booking a
property for the first time and
that’s a different type of
customer”.
A TV ad by Hilton under the name “Stop
Clicking Around”, encourages viewers to
book directly through Hilton, promising the
lowest prices available.

34. Competition | Joining Forces with TripAdvisor
• Booking.com participates in TripAdvisor
Instant Booking, a platform for a more
direct booking between customers and
their potential hosts.
• In many of TripAdvisor Instant Booking
listings, Booking.com appears as
TripAdvisor’s booking partner on the
TripAdvisor site.
• Booking.com handled the bookings on
TripAdvisor for hotel chains that have not
agreed to participate in TripAdvisor Instant
Booking or haven’t implemented it yet.

35. Marketing Strategy

36. Marketing Strategy
• The company focuses on the value the Booking.com brings to its
consumers, which is typically based on pricing, room selection, and an
easy-to-use product.
• In relation to online marketing, Booking.com is investing efforts in
performance advertising – targeting consumers who are using search
engines in order to find customers at the moment that they have a very
clear intent.
• In recent years, the company is increasingly focusing on a more upper-
funnel (initial intrigue, raising brand awareness, increasingly through TV
ads) or mid-funnel communication (designed to engage and educate
prospects who already have some familiarity with the brand).
• Booking.com makes a big portion of Priceline group’ marketing budget
($2.8 billion in 2015 in online advertising, $3.36 in total in 2015),
specific numbers are not disclosed.
• 3 Core Markets are: USA, Japan, China

37. Marketing Strategy | Advertising
• The company localizes its campaigns in certain markets. For example: China is a market that
warrants specific Chinese creative and a specific Chinese approach.
• In Brazil, the company localized its global work, for example by featuring in sitcoms in the country,
a popular format also to do product introductions.
• Everywhere else in the world, the company is mostly marketing using a global approach.
• In 2013, the USA became Booking.com’s
largest destination country. In order to attract
more American customers, the company
started using traditional advertising in the USA.
• In the USA, Booking.com is a challenger
brand. Expedia is leading the market, while
booking.com is relatively new to the category
in the country.
In the USA, Booking.com launched in 2016 a TV campaign, featuring
an engaged couple of comedians who are struggling to find
accommodations for their special day.
Watch ads on Booking.com’s YouTube channel.

38. Marketing Strategy | Advertising
On January 2016, Booking.com has
launched a new campaign, entitled ‘Best
2016 Ever’, that aims to encourage
people to turn their New Year’s
resolutions into reservations.
The idea is that everyone should make
reservations not resolutions, in order to
actually live their dreams.
The campaign supported a new tool, the
Resolution Translator, a mobile-first
interactive service that translates tedious
resolutions into affirming travel-based
goals. The personalized result is then
shareable across social media.
The campaign also includes a 30-second
movie-style trailer TVC that depicts the
epic travel possibilities 2016 holds, along
with online and social executions.

39. Marketing Strategy | Advertising
In 2015, Booking.com launched the “Booking
Right” campaign, an integrated campaign which
attempts to show how a perfectly chosen
accommodation can make anyone feel like a
Booking Hero.
The campaign uses film, digital, social media,
print and out of home activations and is based
on real stories and insights from Booking.com
customer reviews.
The campaign includes five contextual online
films that match user Google key word searches
with a world of possible Booking.com stays.
The campaign was launched in the USA,
Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and
Germany.

40. Marketing Strategy | Loyalty
• Booking.com launched a loyalty program for business
travelers on October 2016.
• The program, Booking.com Travel Rewards, offers 10
percent discounts on select hotels and other perks.
• When you book a hotel on Booking.com, the site asks
whether the prospective booking is for leisure or
business travel, and if you select the latter and go
ahead with the booking, an invitation for a free
upgrade to Booking.com for Business arrives by email.
• Five bookings bring access to “exclusive discounts
and travel perks for future trips,” the rewards program
states.
• Booking.com Travel Rewards members who achieve
at least five bookings earn the “Genius” label, and get
access to the program’s separate customer service
phone line. Other perks include “late checkout priority
exclusively” for Geniuses, and, at select properties,
freebies such as welcome drinks and free airport
shuttles.

41. Marketing Strategy | Loyalty
• Booking.com partnered with
two banks to launch a branded
credit card, in order to target
international travelers.
• The credit cards, offered by Abu
Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) and
China Merchant bank, offer
discounts, cash back, airport
lounge access and other benefits
to travelers who book their tour
using Booking.com.
• Customers of ADIB who sign up
for either of the two branded credit
cards offered, will automatically be
upgraded to Booking.com Genius
status which gives them access to
additional preferential rates and
discounts on Booking.com’s
offering.

42. Social Media
• Social media is perceived by Booking.com’s Chief Marketing Officer as channels used to engage with
customers more on an inspirational level, since social media is inherently content-driven.
• For example, much of the conversation today on Facebook is about travel, and much on Instagram is
about travel, as consumers are craving for sharing travel experiences or discussing travel in social
channels. Booking.com aims to add value to these conversations.
In 2015, Booking.com invited consumers
through social media to submit pics of
their summer adventures, then turning its
favorites into animated GIFs.

43. Social Media | Facebook
• The Booking.com Facebook page mainly offers pictures that link to hotels and locations on
the website.

44. Social Media | Twitter
Booking.com on
Twitter

45. Social Media | YouTube
The YouTube Channel
features links to local
Booking.com YouTube
channels

46. Social Media | Google+
Booking.com on
Google+

47. Social Media | Instagram
Booking.com on
Instagram

48. Social Media | Instagram

49. Social Media | Instagram

50. Social Media | Pinterest
Booking.com on
Pinterest

51. Social Media | Pinterest

52. Summary: Success Drivers for Booking.com
Website UX
Building brand awareness
Mobile focus
Loyalty programs
Segmentation
Offering added value for partners / customers

53. Thank You!
The research was conducted by: Ruth Lewin-Chen
Schieber Research | Market Research & Competitive Intelligence
www.researchci.com | hamutal@researchci.com
More articles and researches on Carmelon Digital
Marketing website:
http://www.carmelon-digital.com